CC200 Classical World: The Melian Dialogue
Prof. Michael Arnush
The Melian Dialogue, one of the most powerful presentations of a fundamental human conflict in the ancient world, will be the context for a classroom debate on Monday, March 7. All of you will participate in our rhetorical examination, based upon the arguments made by the Athenians and Melians on the following topic:
“Does might make right?”
Here is how the debate will unfold on Monday in class, starting precisely at 1.25pm:
1. William and Will (w_cabell, w_sabin) make the first affirmative argument (taking the Athenian position), defining the main terms and outlining their case (3 minutes)
2. Kristi and Mallika (k_sadows, m_dattat) make the first negative argument (taking the Melian position), contesting any badly defined terms and outline the negative case (3 minutes)
3. Alex and Kate (a_eaton, k_butler) complete the Athenian case, especially with evidence (3 minutes)
4. Adam and Eden (a_cupple, e_roesse) complete the Melian case, especially with evidence (3 minutes)
We then take a three-minute break. Then, the following pairs begin their rebuttals, again with each pair taking three minutes:
1. Kim and Bella (k_mabb, i_gaspic) make the first rebuttal of the Melian case, showing the weaknesses in the most important arguments of the Melians
2. Drew and Max (a_isleib, m_winer) make the first rebuttal of the Athenian case, showing the weaknesses in the most important arguments of the Athenians
3. Charlie and Jessamyn (c_phelps, j_hertel) make the second rebuttal of the Melian case, showing the weaknesses in the most important arguments of the Melians and relying especially on the evidence
4. Mike and Elise (m_wheele, e_bedard) make the second rebuttal of the Athenian case, showing the weaknesses in the most important arguments of the Athenians and relying especially on the evidence
We then shift immediately to cross-questioning:
1. Molly and Jon (m_appel, j_clarke) then ask any questions of any of the Melians, but must allow time for answers and not turn the cross-questioning into a speech (3 minutes)
2. Rennie and Nick (r_ament, n_borek) then ask any questions of any of the Athenians, but must allow time for answers and not turn the cross-questioning into a speech (3 minutes)
We then give the judges an opportunity to deliberate – in public. The judges are in three triads, and each triad will receive three minutes:
1. Chrissy, Chris, Kat (c_bach, c_bendan, k_byun)
2. Hannah, Jess, Blair (h_chappl, j_cichy, b_costel)
3. Megan, Liz, Diane (m_mcderm, e_rusnak, d_terry)
If we have stayed on schedule, then we have just under 15 minutes left to discuss the results. What are your responsibilities for this mock debate?
1. Read the Melian Dialogue (below) as told by the Greek historian Thucydides.
2. Contact and meet with your partner(s) before class on Monday. Decide what you will say and how you will fashion your argument, rebuttal, or cross-questioning (or, if you’re a judge, what you think are the essential points that can persuade you one way or the other).
3. Compose a sort of “script” for your participation in this debate. You only have three minutes, which will evaporate if you’re not well-prepared and stick to your goals.
4. Note: all of you must participate orally in the classroom debate. Failure to do so will result in a grade of “F” for this exercise.
Your greatest challenge will be to remain flexible in the classroom, to think on your feet and be prepared to change your tactics in order to achieve your longer-range goal. Like a courtroom, the framework of a mock debate can shift rapidly as you each contribute to our collective thinking. Bring something to write on and plan to sit with your partner as soon as you arrive, so you can share quick notes as you listen to the arguments that precede yours. Because we want to maximize our time to discuss at the end, please try to come to class before 1.25 so that we can begin precisely on time. Good luck, and have fun!
Thucydides: The Melian Dialogue: 5.84-116 (416 BCE)
The leaders of Melos faced a terrible choice: have their countrymen die as free men or live as slaves. The powerful Athenian generals and their fleet of thirty-eight ships carrying heavy infantry and archers waited at the shores of Melos ready for action as the Melians deliberated.
It was 416 BCE, the sixteenth year of the Peloponnesian War but for the last six years the two great feuding empires headed by Athens and Sparta (Lacedaemon) had avoided open hostile action against each other. Ten years into the War they had signed a treaty of peace and friendship; however, this treaty did not dissipate the distrust that existed between them. Each feared the others’ hegemonic designs on the Peloponnese and sought to increase its power to thwart the others’ ambitions. Without openly attacking the other, each used persuasion, coercion, and subversion to strengthen itself and weaken its rival. This struggle for hegemony by Athens and Sparta was felt most acutely by small, hitherto “independent” states who were now being forced to take sides in the bi-polar Greek world of fifth century BCE. One such state was Melos.
Despite being one of the few island colonies of Sparta, Melos had remained neutral in the struggle between Sparta and Athens. Its neutrality, however, was unacceptable to the Athenians, who, accompanied by overwhelming military and naval power, arrived in Melos to pressure it into submission. After strategically positioning their powerful fleets, the Athenian generals sent envoys to Melos to negotiate the island’s surrender.
The commissioners of Melos agreed to meet the envoys in private. They were afraid the Athenians, known for their rhetorical skills, might sway the people if allowed a public forum. The envoys came with an offer that, if the Melians submitted and became a part of the Athenian empire, their people and their possessions would not be harmed. The Melians argued that by the law of nations they had the right to remain neutral, and no nation had the right to attack without provocation. Having been a free state for seven hundred years they were not ready to give up that freedom. Thucydides captures the exchange between the Melians and the Athenians in 5.84-116.
1
5.84
[1] The next summer Alcibiades sailed with twenty ships to Argos and seized the suspected persons still left of the Lacedaemonian faction to the number of three hundred, whom the Athenians forthwith lodged in the neighboring islands of their empire. The Athenians also made an expedition against the isle of Melos with thirty ships of their own, six Chian, and two Lesbian vessels, sixteen hundred heavy infantry, three hundred archers, and twenty mounted archers from Athens, and about fifteen hundred heavy infantry from the allies and the islanders. [2] The Melians are a colony of Lacedaemon that would not submit to the Athenians like the other islanders, and at first remained neutral and took no part in the struggle, but afterwards upon the Athenians using violence and plundering their territory, assumed an attitude of open hostility. [3] Cleomedes, son of Lycomedes, and Tisias, son of Tisimachus, the generals, encamping in their territory with the above armament, before doing any harm to their land, sent envoys to negotiate. These the Melians did not bring before the people, but bade them state the object of their mission to the magistrates and the few; upon which the Athenians spoke as follows:--
5.85
Athenians: ‘Since the negotiations are not to go on before the people, in order that we may not be able to speak straight on without interruption, and deceive the ears of the multitude by seductive arguments which would pass without refutation (for we know that this is the meaning of our being brought before the few), what if you who sit there were to pursue a method more cautious still! Make no set speech yourselves, but take us up at whatever you do not like, and settle that before going any farther. And first tell us if this proposition of ours suits you.’
5.86
The Melians answered:--
Melians: ‘To the fairness of quietly instructing each other as you propose there is nothing to object; but your military preparations are too far advanced to agree with what you say, as we see you are come to be judges in your own cause, and that all we can reasonably expect from this negotiation is war, if we prove to have right on our side and refuse to submit, and in the contrary case, slavery.’
5.87
Athenians: ‘If you have met to reason about presentiments of the future, or for anything else than to consult for the safety of your state upon the facts that you see before you, we will give over; otherwise we will go on.’
5.88
Melians: ‘It is natural and excusable for men in our position to turn more ways than one both in thought and utterance. However, the question in this conference is, as you say, the safety of our country; and the discussion, if you please, can proceed in the way which you propose.’
5.89
Athenians: ‘For ourselves, we shall not trouble you with specious pretences--either of how we have a right to our empire because we overthrew the Persians, or are now attacking you because of wrong that you have done us--and make a long speech which would not be believed; and in return we hope that you, instead of thinking to influence us by saying that you did not join the Lacedaemonians, although their colonists, or that you have done us no wrong, will aim at what is feasible, holding in view the real sentiments of us both; since you know as well as we do that right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.’
5.90
Melians: ‘As we think, at any rate, it is expedient--we speak as we are obliged, since you enjoin us to let right alone and talk only of interest--that you should not destroy what is our common protection, the privilege of being allowed in danger to invoke what is fair and right, and even to profit by arguments not strictly valid if they can be got to pass current. And you are as much interested in this as any, as your fall would be a signal for the heaviest vengeance and an example for the world to meditate upon.’
5.91
Athenians: ‘The end of our empire, if end it should, does not frighten us: a rival empire like Lacedaemon, even if Lacedaemon was our real antagonist, is not so terrible to the vanquished as subjects who by themselves attack and overpower their rulers. [2] This, however, is a risk that we are content to take. We will now proceed to show you that we are come here in the interest of our empire, and that we shall say what we are now going to say, for the preservation of your country; as we would fain exercise that empire over you without trouble, and see you preserved for the good of us both.’
5.92
Melians: ‘And how, pray, could it turn out as good for us to serve as for you to rule?’
5.93
Athenians: ‘Because you would have the advantage of submitting before suffering the worst, and we should gain by not destroying you.’
5.94
Melians: ‘So that you would not consent to our being neutral, friends instead of enemies, but allies of neither side.’
5.95
Athenians: ‘No; for your hostility cannot so much hurt us as your friendship will be an argument to our subjects of our weakness, and your enmity of our power.’
5.96
Melians: ‘Is that your subjects' idea of equity, to put those who have nothing to do with you in the same category with peoples that are most of them your own colonists, and some conquered rebels?’
5.97
Athenians: ‘As far as right goes they think one has as much of it as the other, and that if any maintain their independence it is because they are strong, and that if we do not molest them it is because we are afraid; so that besides extending our empire we should gain in security by your subjection; the fact that you are islanders and weaker than others rendering it all the more important that you should not succeed in baffling the masters of the sea.’
5.98
Melians: ‘But do you consider that there is no security in the policy which we indicate? For here again if you debar us from talking about justice and invite us to obey your interest, we also must explain ours, and try to persuade you, if the two happen to coincide. How can you avoid making enemies of all existing neutrals who shall look at our case and conclude from it that one day or another you will attack them? And what is this but to make greater the enemies that you have already, and to force others to become so who would otherwise have never thought of it?’
5.99
Athenians: ‘Why, the fact is that continentals generally give us but little alarm; the liberty which they enjoy will long prevent their taking precautions against us; it is rather islanders like yourselves, outside our empire, and subjects smarting under the yoke, who would be the most likely to take a rash step and lead themselves and us into obvious danger.’
5.100
Melians: ‘Well then, if you risk so much to retain your empire, and your subjects to get rid of it, it were surely great baseness and cowardice in us who are still free not to try everything that can be tried, before submitting to your yoke.’
5.101
Athenians: ‘Not if you are well advised, the contest not being an equal one, with honor as the prize and shame as the penalty, but a question of self-preservation and of not resisting those who are far stronger than you are.’
5.102
Melians: ‘But we know that the fortune of war is sometimes more impartial than the disproportion of numbers might lead one to suppose; to submit is to give ourselves over to despair, while action still preserves for us a hope that we may stand erect.’